Mel Tormé / Comin' Home Baby / 1962
Puttin' On the Ritz
breezy, mock-glamorous, wryly amused
Mel Tormé's 1962 reading of Irving Berlin's standard turns a Jazz Age fashion parade into a swinging exercise in vocal showmanship. The lyric itself is a satirical catalog of Depression-era high society dressing to the nines, and Tormé's arrangement leans into its rhythmic wordplay more than its social bite.
class aspiration and pretense fashion as performance urban spectacle irony toward wealth style over substance
Who's speaking
An unnamed observer addresses a listener directly, inviting them to watch -- and implicitly join -- the parade of the well-dressed on a famous avenue; the tone is knowing rather than naive, closer to a tour guide pointing out absurdities than a true believer in the scene's glamour.
What happens
The song doesn't develop a plot so much as accumulate imagery: it opens by pointing out the fashionable rich strolling a famous street, then invites a downcast listener to go watch them, and spends the rest of its length itemizing their outfits and affectations in escalating, almost breathless catalog form before ending on a repeated title phrase that functions as both punchline and fade-out.
How it's built
Built as a classic Tin Pan Alley verse-and-refrain song, with short rhyming couplets that pile up quickly, each capped by the title phrase as a refrain-hook. The catalog structure (hats, collars, coats, canes) creates a list-song momentum, and Tormé's performance uses the tight internal rhymes to build rhythmic momentum rather than narrative suspense, ending with the title phrase repeated as a vamp-out.
Section by section
Opening verse
The song sets its scene immediately: a wealthy avenue, a crowd defined entirely by posture and attitude. The imagery of raised noses signals that this will be a portrait of pretension rather than genuine elegance.
First refrain stanza
The invitation to a sad listener frames the whole song as escapism -- watching rich people parade becomes a kind of entertainment or therapy, which already hints that the glamour is more spectacle than substance.
Fashion catalog verses
The lyric shifts into pure itemization, naming cuts of coats and styles of trousers. This section functions almost like a tailor's inventory set to rhythm, and the quick rhymes are built for virtuosic vocal delivery rather than emotional depth.,
Gary Cooper comparison
“Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper”
Name-checking a Hollywood icon reveals the aspirational core of the song -- these are people performing a borrowed image of sophistication rather than possessing it naturally.
Rockefeller verse
Invoking a real symbol of American wealth elevates the satire from generic rich people to the apex of capitalist status, while the canes and umbrellas reduce that wealth to mere props.
Misfits verse
“All misfits”
This is the lyric's sharpest moment of self-awareness, admitting outright that the beautiful and the clownish alike are just playing dress-up, undercutting the entire fantasy of effortless class.
Closing vamp
The repeated title phrase strips away narrative entirely, leaving only the phrase itself as rhythmic hook -- fitting for a big-band vocal arrangement built to close on a vocal and instrumental flourish rather than a lyrical resolution.
Craft
- catalog/list structure
- The song itemizes clothing and accessories in rapid succession, mimicking the visual overload of a fashion parade and turning description into rhythm.
- internal rhyme and near-rhyme
- Pairs like collars and dollars, or trooper and super-duper, create a percussive, tongue-twisting quality that rewards vocal dexterity -- well-suited to Tormé's jazz phrasing.
- irony
- The breathless admiration for the wealthy's attire is undercut by small jabs -- calling the crowd misfits in borrowed finery -- suggesting the whole spectacle is somewhat absurd or hollow.
- direct address
- The speaker repeatedly invites a melancholy listener to come watch the parade, turning the song into an imagined cure for the blues through vicarious glamour.
Reading it
Most persuasively, the song is a gentle satire of American class aspiration during the Depression era -- people with little real wealth performing the appearance of it through clothing, since appearance was one of the few currencies available during hard times. A competing reading, especially given how Tormé's version emphasizes swing and vocal agility over lyrical nuance, is that by 1962 the song functions less as social commentary and more as a nostalgic, stylish vehicle for a singer to show off phrasing and rhythm, with the original irony flattened into pure entertainment.
Context
Irving Berlin wrote 'Puttin' On the Ritz' in 1929, originally with lyrics referencing Harlem rather than Park Avenue and aimed more pointedly at working-class Black New Yorkers dressing above their means; the lyric was revised in the 1930s to the Park Avenue/high-society version used here, shifting its satirical target to white wealth and removing the racial dimension of the original. Tormé's 1962 recording, on the album Comin' Home Baby, fits his career niche as a jazz-oriented pop vocalist reviving standards with inventive, often uptempo arrangements.
Listen for
- the rapid internal rhymes and how Tormé's phrasing turns them into rhythmic punches
- the shift from scene-setting description to pure catalog of clothing items
- the moment the lyric admits the parade includes misfits, puncturing its own glamour
- how the arrangement likely builds energy toward the repeated title vamp at the close
About Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé, nicknamed "The Velvet Fog", was an American musician, singer, composer, arranger, drummer, actor, and author. He composed the music for "The Christmas Song" and co-wrote the lyrics with Bob Wells.
1925 - 1999 / United States
Full biography and catalogue